Fear was within the tossing bark
When stormy winds grew loud
And waves came rolling high and dark,
And the tall mast was bowed.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky.
Their giant branches tost.
MRS. HEMANS.
About twenty-four hours after the capture of the brig, related in the
last chapter, every evidence of a violent storm was abroad. The wind
began to sigh, as if bewailing in anticipation the evils which its
increased fury might perpetrate. Gradually becoming more violent, it
raged with the violence of a young lion over its prey. A blackness,
almost as thick as night covered the face of the sky, as though the
Almighty were bending his most awful frown upon a devoted world. These
indications were speedily followed by heavy rain, intermixed with hail,
disturbing the ocean, swelling brooks and lakes into vast sheets of
foam, borne by the might of the wind far from their original source, and
inundating the land in a fearful manner.
Two weeks previous to this storm an aged colonist from New Haven, had
arrived with his son at the island on which Newport now stands. The
advantages of that situation for sea-bathing, at this day so thoroughly
known and tested, had even at that early period been discovered, and the
season being spring, their object was to make arrangements for putting
up a rude bathing-house for the accommodation of invalids.
During the storm described, the pair had remained for shelter on board
their schooner, which, anchored as she was, had hard work to live
through the anger of the elements. At length, however, after four or
five hours, their rage began to abate: the wind gradually blew less and
less wildly, the clouds commenced to disperse, and the shower to fall
more quietly. Finally, the sun broke through his shroud of darkness, a
pleasant calm succeeded, and the only rain-drops perceptible were those
which clung to the dripping masts and sides of the schooner, and the
rocks and shrubbery on the island.
As the old man and his son looked around them, the sea swelled and
heaved with the agitation of the recent storm, the effects of which upon
the waves had been too violent to subside for many hours. The tide
poured along a surf deafening to hear, and bewildering to behold. The
sea came on toward the beach in swells, rather than waves, as though the
whole flood were pouring on in one huge body, rising gradually as it
neared, towering above the high ridge, drawing back for an instant, and
standing as a wall of water, it poured down like some mighty cataract.
All at once, the young man started and exclaimed, “God in Heaven!
father, there is a vessel drifting upon the opposite strand.”
The old man perceived an object among the tide. He took his spy-glass
and looked through it. “She is dismasted,” he said, “nothing but her
hulk is left upon the water.”
“And drifting against the breakers,” cried his son, in horror, “without
the slightest means of weathering the point!”
“She makes no attempt,” replied the other, “she must be deserted by her
crew.”
“No open boat could have existed through such a storm as is just past,
all must have perished.”
“Most probably,” answered the old man, with the mild composure of his
years.
The hulk was now in the midst of the current, and drifting rapidly
toward the strand. Their sight of it, however, was still indistinct:
though from the black speck it had at first appeared, it grew a visible
object. At length, they could perceive that it was a freight or
passenger vessel, unfitted for defense, for there were no port-holes
discernible. She had evidently been dismasted in the storm, and lay
water-logged upon the waves, at the mercy of their violence. The crew,
finding themselves unable to guide her, or relieve the leak, had taken
to their boats and left the ship to her fate.
There was nothing then to fear for human life in the end to which she
was fast approaching; yet the old man and his son could scarcely behold
her, without a feeling of apprehension, about to fall a prey to the
waves. As she advanced, every fathom’s stride she grew larger and
larger. At length, as she surmounted the summit of one mountainous
billow, her whole bulk was discernible. And when that wave retired, she
had ceased her existence, and the receding ocean carried back merely her
shattered remains, in the form of planks and beams, to return again by
the next wave and again be precipitated to a distance.
At this instant he perceived a plank floating toward the land, to which
were fastened two human beings.
“It has grounded in a place so shallow as almost to be dry; those
persons live and may yet be saved!” was the exclamation of the youth, as
he jumped from the deck of the schooner, and began to make his way at an
incredibly rapid pace toward the wreck.
“My son, return, your attempt is rashness, nay, it is death.”
But the young man was out of hearing. In ten minutes he stood upon the
cliff which overlooked the spot he sought. He began to descend. His
progress was several times impeded by the falling of huge stones to
which he was about to entrust his weight. Large fragments, too, came
rolling after him, as if to send him headlong to the bottom. But a
courageous heart and a firm tread bore him safely to the foot of the
precipice.
He was now upon the shallow portion of a small shelf, which projected
out a little distance into the sea, composed of gravel and stones. Upon
this a few pieces of the wreck had grounded. He eagerly sought among
these the objects that had brought him on his perilous errand. He soon
discovered them. They were in a most precarious position. One of them a
delicate female, her wet clothing hanging in heavy folds upon her form,
and herself tied by a handkerchief round her waist to a plank, being
placed with her face uppermost. The other was that of a man, lying by
her side in a reversed position, with his left arm thrown over his
companion, as if to keep her more securely in her place, and his right
clinging around the plank, with the tight, convulsive grasp with which
he had taken hold upon it. In both these persons, sense and the power of
motion were gone. The plank on which they lay, not being thoroughly
grounded upon the beach, but floating still in part upon the sea, was
liable every moment to be washed away, to return no more.
Just as the youth, who had come in the hope of being their preserver,
had discovered them, he saw a billow approaching, and hastened to
interpose his efforts before it reached them, lest, in receding, it
might bear away the sufferers.
He rushed into the surf, and held the plank on which they were with the
tenacity of some animal seizing upon his prey, though under the
dictation of a motive entirely different. It was not without a severe
struggle on his part, that he as well as his lifeless companions were
not swept off by the wave, which proved even stronger in its might than
he had anticipated. He succeeded, however, in retaining his position;
and, before the return of another, by a violent exertion of strength, he
dragged upon the small strip of dry sand, the plank as well as those
attached to it.
He next asked himself, how he should remove the unhappy sufferers to his
father’s vessel, and obtain the means of recalling their ebbing life and
prostrated strength. He looked toward the cliff and shouted for
assistance, but he was answered only by the roaring waves. He turned his
eyes again on those who were before him. The lady, as she lay with her
face uppermost, was a sight more beautiful in the eyes of the rough
youth who gazed upon her than he had ever deemed were the angels in
Heaven. She was at the middle age of life, but still interesting and
lovely in appearance. Her garments were black, and contrasted strangely
with the pearl-like whiteness of her skin. The face of her companion
being downward, his features were not visible; but chestnut curls
clustered over the back of his head, and his whole appearance gave
promise of a pleasing physiognomy beneath.
Bending over them, their preserver discovered that they both still
breathed, but so feebly that the respiration of each was scarcely
perceptible. Of the lady especially, life seemed to have so slight a
hold, that there was much ground to fear that unless it were at once
re-inforced it would shortly become extinct.
At this moment his father crept cautiously along the beach. Anxious for
his son, as well as wishing to assist him in his hazardous enterprise of
mercy, if, in fact, he had not lost his life in the perilous path he had
taken, the old man had reached him at length by a circuitous and less
dangerous descent.
He uttered an exclamation of thanks at beholding him uninjured. Then,
after a moment’s consultation, the father untied the handkerchief which
bound the female to the plank, and lifting the insensible and fragile
form in his arms with much care, he set out with rapid steps by the same
path he had come.
His son had more difficulty in raising the body of her companion. But by
one of those superhuman efforts of strength which great emergencies are
known to inspire, he at length succeeded, and with labored breath,
followed after his father, as rapidly as the heavy weight of his burden
would allow.
It was about twelve minutes after the old man, that the youth reached
the schooner. The lady, by this time, under the vigorous exertions of
his father, had revived so far as to open her eyes and sigh heavily.
Both the men, therefore, deemed it best to devote themselves to the
other sufferer. He too, though not so readily as his companion, owing to
his face having lain downward, and his respiration having been thus
impeded, at length gave signs of returning life.
Reader, we will not stay to behold their complete restoration to
consciousness. We leave you to imagine the circumstance. Doubtless you
have anticipated us in the information, that in them you behold Alice
Heath and Frank Stanley, both of whom the storm had been the means of
delivering unharmed from the hands of the pirates.